Longform Links – 2009-04-15
The papers in this panel address the rich and vibrant queer relationality and intimacies that exist within hip hop and reggaeton. Dominant discourses construct an image of hip hop and reggaeton that depict these genres as spaces of unabashed homophobia and misogyny. In attempting to address the ways in which misogyny functions in hip hop and reggaeton, scholars have largely failed to interrogate heterosexism and privilege in their critiques of these genres. Furthermore, when queerness and queer desire are made visible, it is typically through the problematic representations of DL/Homo Thug identity and practices. The panelists seek to expand the discussion of queerness in hip hop and reggaeton by exploring spaces and performances that on the surface seem to exude contradictory ways of being and embodiment, but actually enable the development of queer(ed) intimacies. We use queer not only to describe same sex relationships, pleasures, and desires, but also to describe disruptions to normative practices and structures. Marisol LeBrón focuses on reggaetonera and hindi-vocalist Deevani as a case study for examining the complicated roots/routes of “socio-sonic circuitry” and affinity that operate in reggaeton. Placing Gujarati American vocalist Raje Shwari at the center hip hop’s recent engagement with South Asian music and artists, Elliott Powell explores the ways in which a turn to the sonic opens up possibilities for South Asian female queer desire and subjectivity in this post 9/11 era. Finally, Laurence Ralph examines the epistemology of the closet in hip hop and forms of homosocial intimacies among rappers.
My paper has changed quite a bit from when I submitted the abstract, so while in the larger paper I do discuss Deevani, in this conference paper I will be looking at how bhangraton queers reggaeton by disrupting the normative logic of cultural nationalism that surfaced during 2005-2006 at the height to reggaeton’s boom.
Sepia Mutiny put Rush on blast for the continuation of an ignorant trend:
RUSH: It might. No question about it. But the whole thing about outsourcing, even President Obama slipped up. I love this, ‘cause the teleprompter, that teleprompter sometimes sneaks things in there that are not in Obama’s best interests to say, but the teleprompter nevertheless makes him say them. Obama got a call during his virtual town meeting about outsourcing jobs, he said, “Look, those jobs aren’t coming back.” There’s a reason they aren’t coming back. They’re outsourced for a reason, an economic reason, and they’re not coming back. If you’re sitting out waiting for a job that’s now being done by a slumdog in India, and you’re waiting for that job to be canceled, for the slumdog to be thrown out of work, and you to get the job, it ain’t going to happen. It’s not the way economics works. Even Obama’s teleprompter got him to admit that. (link)
The odd thing is, I agree roughly with what Rush Limbaugh is saying about some outsourced jobs. He has Obama all wrong, of course (see an excerpt of Obama’s Virtual Town Hall Meeting below). The real problem here is the contemptuous way he’s throwing around the word “slumdog.” But then, contempt is Rush Limbaugh’s only working emotion.
I’m not going to start a letter-writing campaign or a boycott, or anything; there’s no point tilting at this particular “Windbagmill.” But it still needs to be said: Rush, for your information, many of the jobs that have been outsourced in recent years involve high levels of skill and training. The people who do them are not “slumdogs”; they are professionals.
New America Media asks “Can Black Men Survive Falling U.S. Economy?”
A recent study indicates that of the major ethnic groups impacted by unemployment during the current U.S. recession, Black men have experienced the greatest job losses since the crisis officially began in November 2007.
“What’s missing from national media coverage of this recession is plainly a great deal of dishonesty about who’s losing their jobs. This is overwhelmingly a blue collar, retail sales, low level recession,” said Andrew Sum, professor of economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., which published the study.
I never, ever, ever wanted to bring up Sarah Palin ever again post-election. I don’t want to hear from her, talk about her, NOTHING. But damn it, this needs to be repeated:
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